Mobile client devices and applications such as smart phones and their applications are increasingly being used to access data repositories that were traditionally set up to support larger clients, such as laptop and desktop computers. A key difference in the operation between these two categories of client devices and applications is the amount and level of information detail that they typically access. Users of mobile devices and applications generally need to access certain specific information in a database quickly, download small amounts of data from the database, or communicate with a private computer system in short interactions while away from the office or home. For example, a user may be interested in signing into a private enterprise computer to quickly check for new electronic messages, forward office phone calls to a voice mail system, or look up the status of a pending financial transaction.
Conventional information handling systems often use an authentication process such as password verification to grant a client access to information in a database. A password is a unique string of characters that a user has previously created for the user or a user's client in order to be authorized to access a target system. To increase the level of protection, it is often desirable to have a password that includes a relatively long and unique combination of alphabet characters and numbers that is difficult to guess. However, long and complex passwords are generally not suitable for mobile client devices and applications due to their limited input capability. For example, these mobile devices may have small display screens, simplified keypads, limited network bandwidth, or minimum graphics support.
The limited resources in mobile devices generally require the users to spend more time in entering a sufficiently secure password or pass phrase. In addition, the applications that operate on mobile user devices are often designed to support short commands and brief interactions with remotely connected systems to access specific information in the systems.
One possible approach for simplifying access to information from mobile devices utilizes a caching of either an access token or the password itself. For example, a Web application for smart phones may allow users to stay logged in for two weeks after being authenticated to access a server by caching the phones' access token. Other smart phone applications may save a user's password on the device and then log in on the user's behalf. Both approaches are problematic for business enterprises because corporate IT departments are concerned about the consequences of lost smart phones, particularly the potential for compromised data or services. Requiring that users enter a password during each session provides some minimum level of protection even in the event of a lost device.
While passwords are problematic, eliminating them or reducing their complexity is often not an option for enterprises that want to maintain some minimum level of security around business information. Further, in many cases, users of mobile clients typically need to access more detailed information only if there is new information or information that they need to act on rather than accessing the full information initially.